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1. Re: CMYK Colors and profiles
Mylenium May 31, 2012 1:12 AM (in response to ottz0)Your system is simply not color calibrated and thus all your efforts are going to waste. Your black appears grey because without suitable profiles, the on-screen simulation is off. And 4x100% is not black. It's almost physically impossible to print something with 400% ink saturation. Really, you need to read up on color management and requirements for print....
Mylenium
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2. Re: CMYK Colors and profiles
Gernot Hoffmann May 31, 2012 6:05 AM (in response to ottz0)I've done the necessary tests:
Image A: original RGB image, additionall a square R=0,G=0,B=0
sRGB
Image B (not shown): Grayscale
G=2.2
Image C: CMYK image with Grayscale pasted into the K-channel. C,M,Y void.
US.Web Coated (SWOP) v2
This image looks a little washed out. The black square has K=100 and now
(calculated from CMYK back to sRGB) R=35,G=31,B=32.
Furtheron L=12,a=2,b=0. This black ink has indeed a weak red appearance,
but that's hardly visible. The wash-out becomes even stronger for 'simulate
black ink' and the appearance turns into sepia for 'simulate paper color'.
It's well known that pure black ink doesn't create a pleasant black.
By the way: It's not prohibited to print by 400% Total Ink Coverage.
This is just the ultimate value for ink limit testpatterns for inkjets.
Using excellent proofing paper, the ink does not bleed.
But there are two reasons, why the ink limit is preferrably at 320% or
below:
a) with too much ink the print doesn't dry fast enough, which would be
a desaster for offset printing.
b) more ink doesn't necessarily mean darker. Adding yellow ink can
make the printed black even lighter.
Examples by Photoshop CS2
Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann
Edit: the images have the same pixel dimensions but are shown here
by different sizes.
Image A
Image B (Grayscale) here not available
ImageC CMYK K-only
Message was edited by: Gernot Hoffmann





